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VOL. IV, ISSUE VIII
Does being in front of the camera come easy for you? "Oh yeah, I love the spotlight. I think that's my weak spot. I'm going to get in trouble. I like all the attention." If you could sing, wouldn't you be right for the role in Dreamgirls? "I'm dying. If I could sing I would've been famous 10 years ago. God knew what he was doing." Haven't you run to take lessons? "No. To tell the truth, I'm tone deaf. But with all this technology, I was watching The View and I saw them make even Star Jones sing!" When you were working at the BET Awards, what was your favorite moment? "[Seeing] Monique. I didn't know if she was going to accept me, because [when people see me] everybody's like 'You ain't really big.' But when Monique came over and gave me an official step. It's over now. You done messed up and let me in." Who was your biggest challenge? "Webbie. He's a rapper. It was so hard to pull from him. He just didn't really want to speak. His voice was low. I was like, 'Next!'"
I guess you can't tell me if you lost any weight on Celebrity Fit Club, but isn't that working against what got you here in the first place? "Oh, hell no. See the whole thing is when I was on America's Next Top Model I was 180 pounds. Then when I got eliminated people started assuming costs, coming to get me, and taking me to dinner, and the parties...and I went to 205!" Oh wow! "Yeah, but I still was fabulous at 205." Uh-huh. "Don't be fooled now." (Laughs) "So I decided to take the show so I could go back to the weight when I was introduced to the world." Did you get along with everybody? "I cannot stand Gary Busey. Oh my God! He just takes me to another level. If he walks in a room, I just wanna kick his ass." Was that the real him or was he putting on? "That's him! And the true reason why I dislike him so much is that everyone lets him get away with it. They're like, 'Oh that's just him.' He's like 61 or something so they excuse his behavior. By doing that, he keeps doing it. That's some bull crap to me. I'm not the one." What was the hardest food for you to give up? "Bread. Bread, Bread, Bread. It's so funny to me, cause when I first started I used to laugh when people had salads and stuff. I might have a salad as an appetizer, but to have a salad for my meal? Haw Haw Haw, Now that's funny. People ordering burgers and taking the top off. Now I'm doing it. We're almost done filming, so I'm really pushing hard. I called the doctor and asked what I should eat for breakfast. He said, 'You could have one pancake, two tablespoons of syrup, and two slices of bacon.' I said, 'What?!! You're f---ing kidding me, right?' I've been going this whole show without knowing. Cause what it really is, we're on Nutri System. It's more about portion control and not eliminating food. He done messed up. I'm eating a pancake a day."
Are you dating anybody? "No, no, no, no, no, no. The funny thing about it is before I was on the show I met a lot of celebrities and um..." Like who? Who'd you go out with? "Nobody. (Laughs) Nobody." C'mon, who's Toccara seeing? "(Laughs) You are so silly. I'm a big girl. People are intimidated by this bigness." Maybe. Maybe not. "See [Top Model winner] Eva [Pigford] is nice and sweet, and little and petite. But you know me. Don't I sound rough? Big and thick?" Yeah, but we saw you had such a heart. "Awww." (Laughs) And I would think that somebody, even a NBA baller, would not be intimidated by you or your size? "(Laughs) OK, next question. I'll tell you which celebrity I have a crush on." Who's that? And please don't say Taye Diggs. "The Game!" Really? Why do you like him? "He's like a thugleman. He got the hard look like he don't play, but then he seems very intelligent and his music is saying something." What was that word you used? "A Thugleman! Like a gentleman and a thug." (Laughs) Like when Tyra Banks lit into that girl on the show this season? "Tiffany needed that. Tiffany thinks she's so hard. Tiffany ain't hard." (Laughs) I didn't think Tyra had that in her. "Tyra's from L.A. She's from Compton. I'm just playing."
TC TV - AUG - TH/4: THE LAW FIRM - 9 PM, NBC; NICK CANNON PRESENTS WILD 'N OUT - 10 PM, MTV; BEING BOBBY BROWN - 10 PM, Bravo; THE TONIGHT SHOW - 11:35 PM, NBC: Anthony Anderson; F/5: FIREFLY - 7 PM, Sci Fi; SUPER AGENT - 10 PM, Spike; BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - 10 PM, SciFi; WELCOME TO THE D.L. - 11 PM, Comedy; P. DIDDY PRESENTS THE BAD BOYS OF COMEDY - 11 PM, HBO; RUSSELL SIMMONS PRESENTS DEF POETRY - 11:30 PM, HBO; SA/6: MO'NIQUE'S FAT CHANCE - 8 PM, Oxygen SU/7: THE 4400 - 9 PM, USA; SIX FEET UNDER - 9 PM, HBO; THE SURREAL LIFE - 9 PM, VH1; MISSING - 11 PM, Lifetime; TU/9: THE REAL WORLD - 10 PM, MTV; W/10: R U THE GIRL WITH T-BOZ AND CHILLI - 8 PM, UPN; SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE - 8 PM, Fox; VENUS & SERENA: FOR REAL - 10 PM, ABC Family
"There was a while when I was ducking Vivica Fox because I really thought she wanted to beat me up. She still might." - Aaron McGruder, Boondocks comic strip creator Business mogul Donald Trump has flip-flopped on his proposal to pit a team of African-American contestants against a team of all-white players on an upcoming season of The Apprentice. “Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world,” according to Trump. “But needless to say, not everybody thinks it’s a good idea.” Poli-Sigh! columnist and Season 3 cast member Tara Dowdell says: "This idea has 'misguided publicity stunt' written all over it. Thankfully, Donald Trump has backed off of the idea, but the fact that it was even being considered shows that we still have a long way to go!" CLIPPETTES: Mission: Impossible 3 is getting closer to accomplishing its mission, signing Laurence Fishburne and Philip Seymour Hoffman to join Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell in the sequel. Fishburne will play Cruise's mentor.....Method Man has released a DVD on the world of strip clubs, titled The Strip Game. The film features accounts with the culture & the girls who work in the industry. "We followed them in their everyday life & that's how the documentary kind of wrote itself," Meth told AllHipHop.com.....Mekhi Phifer (ER) will make his directorial debut on the indie comedy pic Easier, Softer Way, which follows two hapless pot heads involved in a scheme to rip off a mysterious character called Mr. Big after the duo sours on rehab. Phifer is set to star, along with Maura Tierney, John C. McGinley, Terry Crews and Mo Collins.....Gawker is reporting that Queer Eye culture guy Jai Rodriguez "was seen by several witnesses at a midtown gay bar recently sucking face with the fallen TV-kitchen hottie responsible for $20 plates of drama, New York meatballs, and more than his mother's share of agita:" The Restaurant's Rocco DiSpirito.....In a report card grading the Live 8 concert at London's Hyde Park, The British Broadcasting Corporation labeled Bob Geldof, Mariah Carey, UB40, Ms Dynamite and Velvet Revolver as the biggest disappointments.....New Yorkers are hearing evening host Funkmaster Flex of WQHT (97.1 FM) and afternoon host Ed Lover of WWPR (105.1 FM) exchanging verbal shots.....Beyoncé is expected to start work on her new album soon and has decided to use influences of Cajun music. It should be released shortly after next year's Destiny's Child 'Greatest Hits' record comes out.....Atlanta nightclub Vision reopened last week after $2 million in renovations. Friday night saw traffic to a standstill within a 5 mile radius, bringing back memories of Freaknik. Celebs in the house reportedly included hosts Destiny's Child, Mary J. Blige, T.I., T-Boz, Monica, Da Brat and Jermaine Dupri.....Variety reports that Eddie Murphy has crafted a heist comedy for he and Chris Rock to topline. X-Men 3 director (and former Serena Williams squeeze) Brett Ratner is to direct. Since Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs had been talking up a similar idea, don't be surprised if he and Ratner buddy Chris Tucker jump aboard.....Wilmer Valderrama of That 70's Show just finished filming the indie film El Muerto, which is based on a graphic novel by Javier Hernandez, about a young man who is transformed into an Aztec zombie.....Lorenzo Owens, one of the three finalists for OPRAH’S POPSTAR MUSIC CHALLENGE, has landed a deal with top music producer Mike J. Powell's D-Town Records. Look for a new CD and tour to begin in September.....LL Cool J (a.k.a. Todd Smith) is getting ready to play the victim in a Fatal Attraction type film.....Latin superstar Ricky Martin will release his first English language CD in 5 years this October. The hot single I Don't Care with Fat Joe and Amerie can be heard at his website.
Author TERRY McMILLAN (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) on her recent marital woes with Jonathan Plummer: "He's an embarrassment to the gay community. Most of the gay men I know have integrity and have self-respect and care about other people. I have gay friends who are offended by what he's doing. They know he's full of s-t. I almost fell out of my chair when the judge said I have to pay him $2,000 a month for three months, until we go to trial and the day that we're supposed to go to court is my birthday. Everything that he's put in (his declaration) is a lie, except for the fact that he's gay. I couldn't believe that the judge could care less that he not just cheated on me, but cheated on me with men and risked my f----g life without my consent. Will I love again? Oh, hell yeah, you crazy? I believe in humankind, and I believe in love. It can fuel you and energize you and it was worth the risk initially. I'm not going to lose my mind. I've got more stuff going on than just being with a man. I can make my self happy." For more from Tonya Pendleton's probing interview, visit: www.bet.com/beauty. Nona Hendryx (formerly of Labelle) has composed the score for Blue, running through August 7 from the Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta. The play traces the Clark family, proprietors of a small South Carolina town's only African-American owned funeral home. Freddie Hendricks, Donna Biscoe, Margurite Hannah and Taurean Blacque of Hill Street Blues fame are featured performers.
Singer JAGUAR WRIGHT gave one of the wildest interviews of the year to SOHH.com. We learn she finds a current Ciara video very troubling. "There's nothing cute about Ciara sittin' there humpin' on a car like a deranged Chihuahua. I liked that lil' girl until I saw her humpin' on that car." Jag says, "And it's not like it made me not like her. My heart went out to her. There's other little girls who are watching her who use her as a role model, who wanna be like her. What happens when one of them pulls that out in the street and the local pedophile is sitting there watching them; waiting to catch them at night? No responsibility at all!" When asked to respond to rumors that she made negative statements and expressed her dislike of Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, and Ashanti, she responded first about Mary, asking "What's negative about it? Mary J. Blige don't like me. I have no idea why. The woman does not like me and it's just like ok, alright. Well, the hell with her then. You ain't gotta like me." Addressing the next rumored conflict she says, "I like Faith. I think Faith is ridiculous. I've always thought she was ridiculous." Finally, she says "Ashanti? What can I say bad about her? She's a cute girl. She holds a little tune but she's not a real singer. You're not gonna sit up there and make me have more respect for her than what she deserves. She can't stand on the same stage with India.Arie. She can't stand on the same stage with me. I didn't do that to her. That's who she is. I'm not lying and I don't have anything against these people. I'm happy for every black woman that doesn't have to be on welfare." Jaguar's new album Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul is now available in stores.
You were able to get Stevie Wonder to play on a track on your album by writing him a note in Braille. Is the language hard to learn? "I don't think so. It's like learning any other system. It has certain things to it. A lot of blind people are not learning Braille these days because it's not the only way now. You have talking computers. Now I type on my computer and don't use a Braille keyboard. I know how to use it, but I just don't in front of a computer. I write in a journal on the website. I use a program called Jaws by Freedom Scientific, which allows you as a blind person to get on. It's a software that makes the computer talk by screen. The computer is a daily thing for me." So Braille has become outdated? "Maybe it's old school. As far as reading a novel, there are much faster ways. I'm reading Anna Karenina right now. That thing would take up half a room in Braille."
Outside of the touring, what else is coming up? "I just got finished working with Herbie Hancock on his new album. He's got all the greats like Sting, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Roy Hargrove. Stevie's playing on it." What did you contribute? "I actually sang a Stevie song." Which one? "I Just Called To Say I Love You. I don't know if I should say that or not." He's doing that?! "Yeah, but you got to hear the arrangement. When I heard what would be the song I thought, Oh man." (Laughs) Yeah, that's what I was thinking. "But wait til you hear it. The arrangement is killer the way they did it. It's a whole new ballgame. It's slow and like a whole different take on the song." Is Stevie on that song too? "Yeah." His upcoming CD is actually a cautionary tale in regard to marketing. It's been pushed back consistently. "I have speculation on that. I think it has more to do with the label than anything else." You think the music is fine? "Yeah. I think there's stuff going on between Stevie and his label. I think Motown is not Motown anymore." With so many false starts, it makes you think something is going on here. "Something's going on for sure. You don't know until the people who are involved choose to tell you what's going on." As a rising artist that must send signals to you. "This is just a really tough business. What really matters are the people you're working with."
So So Def mogul JERMAINE DUPRI to the AJC on his famous girlfriend's failed last album: "What went wrong [was having hot young producer Kanye West work on her first single]. Because he doesn't know anything about why Janet Jackson is Janet Jackson. [The record label's] not even showing any respect to [Jackson's longtime producers] Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. With Jimmy and Terry and Kanye, it's a big musicians' gap. Kanye samples [records]. These guys play. The creativity and sound of the record is going to be completely different. But nobody was thinking about that. They were just thinking that Janet needs to be fresh: 'You need Kanye!'"
TC FESTIVAL FILE: The 4th Annual IRIE MUSIC FESTIVAL (July 29-Aug. 1) expands from inaugural home Nathan Phillips Square to include a second site at the breezy waterfront venue Ontario Place in Toronto. Featured performers include Third World, David Rudder, Morgan Heritage, former Aswad front man Brinsley Forde, and TO’s own 13 member Caribbean band Neu Jenarashun. Programming highlights include a multimedia celebration of the life and legend of the late Bob Marley and the IRIE Book & Art Fair. For more info call: 905-799-1630 x 28.....Details for the 2005 NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE FESTIVAL (Aug. 1-6) in Winston-Salem, NC have finally leaked. Janet Hubert & Joseph Marcell (best known as part of TV's Fresh Prince of Bel Air cast) are the chairpersons this year. Participants to include CCH Pounder, Bill Cobbs, Kimberly Elise, Tom Joyner, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Joseph C. Phillips, Tonya Pinkins, Katherine Dunham, Margaret Avery, Andre De Shields, James Avery, Kim Fields, RaeVen Larrymore Kelly, Malik Yoba, Ebony Jo Ann, Count Stovall, Ella Joyce, Anthony Chisholm, Obba Babatunde, Antonio Fargas, Hal Williams, Rhodessa Jones, Idris Ackamoor, Melba Moore, T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Selected plays will focus on icons Mahalia Jackson; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Jackie Wilson; Thelonius Monk; and Cynthia Foreman, a former Miss Black Teenage America who survived a turbulent marriage to grill master George Foreman.....In the aftermath of the festival war, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that chances of the venerable MUSIC MIDTOWN and the new VIBE MUSICFEST returning next year are iffy. Tasty Clips hears that VIBE may have lost a major sponsor in Burger King.....Constellation, the latest effort from director Jordan Walker-Pearlman, won the Audience Award at this year's URBANWORLD FILM FESTIVAL. The drama reunites the filmmaker with the stars of his acclaimed film The Visit: Billy Dee Williams, Hill Harper and Rae Dawn Chong. Leslie Ann Warren, Melissa DeSouza, Zoe Saldana and Gabrielle Union round out the cast. Other winners were as follows: Best Feature: The Hero - director Zeze Gamboa; Best Short: The Other American Dream - director Enrique Arroyo; Best Music Video: Keep On Moving - director Len Peterson; Best Short Documentary: Foster Stories - director Sasha Isaac-Young; Best Documentary: Through the Fire - director Jonathan Hock. Spotted among the moviegoers were Gene Wilder, Charles Stone III, Stacie J, Lyriq Bent, Al Thompson, Tina Andrews and Warrington Hudlin. For a peek at exclusive shots from the festival, please visit Tasty Pics......At last week's AMERICAN BLACK FILM FESTIVAL, somehow Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) managed to keep tightlipped on his negotiations to direct the life of slain rap legend Notorious B.I.G. Cheo Hodari Coker, the last journalist to interview Biggie, will write the screenplay. Spike Lee at one of the festival's workshops predicted that with the popularity of the John Singleton produced Hustle & Flow imminent, studios will jump on the money train and we can expect other pimp genre movies.
In May, Judi Gatson of WIS News 10 reported on the heartbreaking story of Columbia, S.C. native JOHN BLACKWELL. The drummer in Prince's New Power Generation suffered the loss of his 3 year old daughter Jia in a drowning accident while he was on tour. John was devastated and was content to completely leave the music scene. But after a few days, a close friend convinced him to play for his daughter. The night before Jia's funeral, John played his heart out wearing a shirt with her picture on it at the Essence Music Festival. In a career rededication, his signature drumsticks are now named Jia Angel after her. He also set up a scholarship in her honor at his alma mater the Berklee College of Music in Boston. It's for any female musician who has the talent, spirit and enthusiasm to succeed, but does not have the money to go to school. He has also donated money to charities that promote water safety. This summer, John is teaching a course at Berklee and touring the Orient with NPG saxophonist Candy Dulfer. And in a recent update, Gatson told Tasty Clips that John and his wife are now awaiting the birth of twins.
TASTY CLIPS SPORTS: EARL (THE PEARL) MONROE, who helped lead the Knicks to a championship in 1973, is planning to open Earl Monroe's Restaurant and Pearl Club in NY's Riverbank State Park by Labor Day. "It was more of a selfish thing at first," Monroe said to the Daily News. "I always found myself coming up to Harlem trying to find a place to eat and never really finding the kind of place that I wanted to eat at." The new restaurant will seat about 275 people and will create 20 jobs. Late at night, the restaurant will offer live jazz entertainment. Assemblyman Keith Wright (D-Harlem) heaped praise on Monroe and his plans. Noting that one of Monroe's nicknames was "Black Jesus," he looked to the Hudson and quipped, "Earl, I cannot wait for you to turn all of this water into wine." Chef Christopher Faulkner has developed a menu that will be "a melting pot of all the cultures that are thriving in Harlem," including everything from Southern grits to jerk vegetable lasagna. ESPN Page 2's MIKI TURNER with GABRIELLE UNION: Are you a Lakers fan? "Not any more. Not since Shaq left." What's your take on the whole Shaq-Kobe debacle? "It's what can happen when you give these young guys too much control and they become bigger than the organization and are allowed to make decisions. I don't care what Kobe says, I firmly believe that he had everything in the world to do with convincing Jerry Buss to get rid of Shaq. It just goes to prove that there's something to be said for true teamwork and everybody knowing their roles. No one guy is bigger than the team. There's always some list about sexy female athletes, let's turn it around. Who are some of the sexiest male athletes out there? "Oh please! Other than my husband [Chris Howard] – I have to get that out of the way first – Jerry Porter of the Raiders. I just saw him at The Longest Yard premiere. He dated my friend and that was my excuse to talk to him. So Jerry, is it not working out?! He's gorgeous. Darren Sharper. Tony Gonzalez ... my god! He does the N'Sync celebrity games. He's freakishly attractive. Vince Carter's cute too." What about your friend Charles Woodson? Well, you know I stopped looking at Charles once he walked down the aisle at my wedding. But apparently he's very attractive because all of my single friends always ask, "What's up with Charles?"
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